‘Fear The Walking Dead’ Finds A Heartbreaking New Wrinkle In The Zombie Apocalypse

During the course of The Walking Dead, Rick and co. will occasionally stumble upon a scene that implies a heartbreaking series of events took place days, weeks, or months before they arrived. They will walk into an abandoned office building, for instance, and find the zombified inhabitants hanging from nooses having killed themselves rather than wait for the zombies to kill them. I recall one particularly upsetting scene in which they explored a home only to find a family holding each other, huddled together in a bed, with bullet holes through their heads, a framed picture of their once happy existence sitting on the bedside table next to them. There are a lot of sad stories in The Walking Dead universe like that one that we never get to witness.

In this week’s episode of Fear the Walking Dead, “This Land is Your Land,” we witness one of those stories, the pieces of which we probably could have put together based on the scene that Alicia, Nick, and Ofelia leave behind at the end of the episode. It’s a stomach-churning episode that asks of Alicia something no character has ever had to do in this show or The Walking Dead, at least on this scale. We have seen a number of characters forced to put their friends and loved ones down after they turned into zombies, but in “This Land Is Your Land,” Alicia has to put them down before they turn. What’s even more heartbreaking is that these characters submit to their own executions for the benefit of the others. By letting Alicia execute them, others gain hope, even if that hope is only fleeting.

The episode picks up where the last left off: Alicia, Ofelia, Crazy Dog, and the rest of the members of the Broken Jaw Ranch — 120 people or so in all — are trapped inside the pantry. We learn early on, however, that no air is getting into the underground bunker because a zombie is blocking the ventilation fan. While Crazy Dog and Ofelia crawl through the air ducts to locate the problem, Alicia is left with the rest of the Broken Jaw Ranchers in the pantry with about an hour’s worth of air before they all die of carbon dioxide poisoning.

I’ve never felt fear watching Fear until this episode. Alicia was so effective in transmitting all the emotions of every scene> terror, pain, sadness, happiness, desperation, badassery, compassion, leadership. I felt what she was feeling in every scene. Something Fear has failed to do for me since it started. Excellent performance from this young lady. Great script. Great buildup and filming. I would be more inclined to watch season 4 if she helmed the show. Fear desperately needs a leader character with the good-heartedness that characterizes Rick’s group and himself (that madion, daniel and even strand lack), but who can also sell the kick-ass action too & make the tough calls too. I’d argue that it found it with Alicia in this episode.

I agree. I probably had my first genuine “Oh SHit” moment when you realized the majority of th epeople in the bunker had died and now were started to reanimate. This show has gotten much stronger lately. Hate to say but the Madison character is the one really dragging it down.

I have to agree about Walker. Guy devotes his life to his tribe and their land. COmes back from a run to finds everyone he knows other than a woman he met 3 weeks ago and Crazy Heart dead. “Oh well, time to move on.” You would think that would have hit him a bit harder.

Also, unless the ranch was comepltely over run, you would have thought they would have loaded up a truck or two with the rations that were still left.

I agree with every point you both just made. By far the best episode yet… one I knew eventually would come if I stuck it out and not faltered like so many in the first or second season. And as for Madison, I find myself telling her to “fuck off” at least once an episode.